3D printer or desktop CNC
- Thread starter Rob MacLennan
- Start date
These are the sort of things that have convinced me that desktop CNC is the way for me to go, though realizing the realities involved I could still make good use of 3D printing.
Ideally I would have one of each in my shop but given how little real use they would get, I can't justify that expense. The Shapeoko II is quite capable of producing a professional looking prototype, especially given the addition of extra stiffening and a more capable spindle, but I suspect that most people wouldn't have the patience to wait 6 or 8 hours for some little widget to be cut. Given that my current hobbies include photography, where I end up spending hours culling and editing pictures after each race weekend and chainmailing, that involved tens of hours doing essentially the same thing over and over before a project is completed, the patience thing obviously isn't an issue for me.
Both 3D printers and desktop CNC rigs can be used to make improvements to themselves. One of the common things to do to the Shapeoko II is cut a set of aluminum brackets for something like a DeWalt DWP611 trim router, the files for which are freely available on their forum, then immediately replacing the supplied simple rotary tool with the DeWalt and improve performance.
You can also make a very capable unit using ball screws instead of belts, using framing extrusions like 80/20 and all of the extras they have available, which can easily cut softer metals like aluminum or copper. I'd be looking at more like $3K for that and a lot of development time, for something far more capable than what I actually need.
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